…no longer as a bondservantbut more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother—especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. Philemon 1:16 – Paul was asking a big ask from Philemon with this letter! What we have is a runaway slave named Onesimus who happens to find himself with Paul while he was imprisoned at Rome. In their time together Onesimus accepted Christ and became a fellow believer. Now, as all faithful Christians should do, it was time to make things right with the people we have hurt, and it was time for Onesimus to make things right with his master Philemon. Notice though the verbiage Paul uses within our verse above, not only is Paul asking Philemon to accept his old slave back, but to set him free and give him a new label. Instead of slave Onesimus would be considered Philemon’s brother in Christ. Culturally Paul was asking a lot, something that almost never took place. While we don’t have the slave/master relationship in our culture today like this, the principal of this verse can be applied to our story. Many of us have people who in their sin nature hurt us and they carry labels in our lives as a result. “They’re the one who hurt my family,” “They’re the one who broke my heart,” “They’re the one who took so much from me.” Yet what if like in our chapter that same person found Jesus, and they sought reconciliation with us. Would we be in the right to hold such labels over them? Remember there was a good amount of labels we shed off when we placed our faith in Jesus, maybe we too can let go of some of the labels of people in our past who have since then found Jesus. We can label them instead brother or sister in Christ. Let’s be open to these label changes with such people for it will dramatically impact how we chose to show God’s loves to them. I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 3411
Question To Ponder: What a label you used to carry but don’t anymore because of Jesus?
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